


5, 4, 3, 2, 1

by fangsforasking



Category: What We Do in the Shadows (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, First Kiss, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Getting Together, Guillermo Has A Therapist, M/M, Nandor Has Anxiety, Post Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:02:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25700272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangsforasking/pseuds/fangsforasking
Summary: It was not often that the 750 year old vampire felt unsettled, but ever since that night at the Theatre two weeks ago, Nandor had been on edge.-----Nandor is feeling anxious, and he goes to see Guillermo for help.
Relationships: Guillermo de la Cruz & Nandor the Relentless, Guillermo de la Cruz/Nandor the Relentless
Comments: 12
Kudos: 87





	5, 4, 3, 2, 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic! Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy as much as I've enjoyed reading all of y'all's great work.
> 
> See below for more notes

It was not often that the 750 year old vampire felt unsettled, but ever since that night at the theatre two weeks ago, Nandor had been on edge.

Maybe it was the fact that the Vampiric Council would any moment be at their doorsteps ready to enact revenge or that his relationship with his former familiar, Guillermo, was as unsteady as it has ever been.

The human hadn’t left the Staten Island house for good yet, but Nandor felt like he was slipping away more and more every day. Guillermo was out of the house often, and when he was back, he spent more time on his own, not stuck to Nandor’s side like before.

Nandor hadn’t been sleeping either. And like most days, he was kept up by visions of his familiar staking dozens of vampires, hearing their screams as they came in contact with holy water, and their bodies, still on the floor. He tossed and turned in his coffin, staring into the blackness of the small space. He didn’t need to breathe, but he found his chest heaving, struggling for air. 

Even though he was wearing only a thin blouse, he grew hot and humid in the box. His thoughts now flickering to Guillermo’s note, the short “sorry,” to Guillermo pressing the broken broom against his chest the night Carol was killed.

He couldn’t take it anymore, and he began to shake, crying at the growing aching pressure in the chest from where his heart once beat.

Nandor kicked open the coffin. He didn’t check outside, but he knew it was still in the afternoon, way before he should be wandering around the house.

But Nandor needed help, so he shuffled to the only place he felt he could get it.

He stood outside the Blue Room door hesitating for a minute...hearing Guillermo’s slow heartbeat, the clacking of keys on his laptop, quiet voices from a movie coming out of headphones.

He knocked quietly and heard the music stop.

The door opened. Guillermo peered up at Nandor with a confused look and checked his watch.

“Mas-Nandor, what are you doing here?”

Nandor tried to be casual. “Oh you know, just getting a midnight snack.”

“It’s 3 o’clock,” Guillermo responded deadpan.

“Oh, is it? I hadn’t noticed,” Nandor said trying to sound nonchalant, despite the fact he was still shaking from the episode he just had.

“Do you need something? You should probably get back to your room since there’s still like 6 more hours of sunlight left.” Guillermo said.

Nandor’s shoulders sagged.

“No, I don’t need anything from you. I just wanted to stop by and see how you were…” Nandor stepped past Guillermo and paused trying to think of a valid excuse. “were liking your new room!” 

“Uh huh,” Guillermo rolled his eyes. He had 30 minutes left of the French film, “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” and he was really dying to finish it before he planned to head to the Bronx to visit his mother for dinner. Whatever game Nandor was playing, he wasn’t really trying to play right now.

Nandor broke the silence by speaking again, coming clean about why he came to visit. 

“I couldn’t sleep. It was too hot in my coffin. And there is something wrong with me, with my body. My chest hurts, like I’m having a heart attack. This is not something I’ve felt before, and I don’t like it.”

With the admission, Guillermo took the opportunity to look closer at his former Master. His usual shiny bun was frizzy from what he could only assume was due to days of unrestful sleep. Nandor’s eyes were dark, sunken in. Guillermo could have swore they looked wet, like Nandor had been crying. His symptoms clicked all of a sudden. The panic, the insomnia, and the chest pains. This was the longest they had spoken since the Theatre, so Guillermo treaded carefully with his next question. 

“Are you feeling anxious, Nandor?”

Nandor sniffed, tilting his head upwards proudly. “Of course not. I am a warrior. Warriors don’t get scared on the battlefield.”

Guillermo wasn’t sure how to explain modern conceptions of mental health to a man who had probably never heard of self care.

“Not scared, anxious. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed especially these days. And, I’ve certainly felt uneasy since the thea-” He stopped himself when he saw Nandor flinch at the mention .“….that night,” he continued. 

“A lot has happened to us,” he said, meeting his Master’s eyes then quickly shifting his own away.

“All of us. That’s why I’ve been out of the house so much. That’s why I left in the first place. There’s just been a lot of stuff to work through.”

“And when will you be all done with that?” Nandor responded with his typical impatience.

“I don’t think you can ever be done, thinking and reflecting on yourself. That’s what my therapist says.” Guillermo said, internally proud of the progress he’d made in the short time he’d been going to sessions.

“Therapist?”

Guillermo sighed. “It’s like a person you pay to listen to your problems and help you come up with solutions”

Nandor looked confused. 

“Well, why would I pay for one of those? I can tell you all my problems for free.”

Guillermo raised his voice, annoyed at their conversation falling back to old patterns.

“But I shouldn’t be carrying all your emotional baggage. That’s the problem. I always have to listen, but I’m never heard. Don’t you get it?”

Nandor was taken aback by the outburst. The phantom pressure in his chest began to appear again. He thought all he needed to do was give Guillermo some days off, and their relationship would be like it once was. He didn’t know what all these words his familiar were saying meant. He didn’t notice it at first, but his chest started heaving again, trying to push oxygen into lungs that hadn’t worked in hundreds of years.

Guillermo was caught up in his anger but quickly realized how affected Nandor was by his words.

Maybe it wasn’t the right time to have this conversation yet, he thought to himself. Regardless, he couldn’t just sit there and let Nandor continue freaking out.

“Hey, hey,” Guillermo said, his voice now quiet and soothing. “I’m sorry. We just haven’t talked about all this, and it’s all come bubbling up. Do you want me to help you calm down, so you can get back to sleep?”

He patted the bed, gesturing for him to take a seat.

Nandor glanced up from his clenched fists, his eyes now softening. He nodded and sat down, still tense.

Guillermo sat on the far side of the bed facing Nandor. “We’re going to do a grounding technique”

“Grinding what?”

“No...grounding. It’s something you can do by yourself to help pull you out of those panicky feelings. It’s something I’ve found really helpful these days.”

Nandor felt stupid, but he could really take any help he could get right now. 

He hesitated but slowly released where he had been gripping his shirt. “Ok, what do I do?”

“Well, you’re going to connect to each of your 5 senses. So first, name five things you see.”

Nandor looked around. His eyes fell to the man in front of him. The human sitting on the bed seemed nothing like the slayer in the theatre. It was a relief to see Guillermo as small and non-threatening in this moment.

“I see you, Guillermo….” Nandor shrugged, not sure what this technique was or how this would deflate the pressure lodged in his chest.

“Ok, that works.”

Nandor gave a half smile at the other man’s approval and continued.

“Laptop….bed...lamp.” His wandering eyes glanced at a wooden stake across the room, and he spoke without thinking. “Stake.” The vampire hissed realizing what he named.

Guillermo ran over to the desk and shoved the stake in a drawer. He walked back to the bed, sitting closer to Nandor than where he was before.

“Ok, let’s try to avoid things like that, but you’re doing well. Now, name four things you can touch.”

Nandor ran his fingers through his hair. 

“Oh, my hair.” He looked down to his hands. With Guillermo not there to prepare him for bed each night, he had found himself sleeping in whatever he was wearing including jewelry.

“And my rings.” Nandor felt like he was getting good at this. The nervous thoughts that had kept him up that day were slowly retreating to the back of his brain.

His hand moved to the back of the bed.

“Your pillow.” But then he thought of the purpose of the pillow he once got Guillermo and could only assume the same for this one. He grimaced. His hand quickly shot back and landed on the thigh of the man beside him. 

The pair’s eyes met. “Guillermo, I am touching you” he whispered with a giggle.

The man blushed, blood rushing to Guillermo’s cheeks. 

Nandor moved his hand back to his own leg, instantly missing the warmness of the human on his palms and fingertips. 

Guillermo laughed nervously, not sure where this was all headed, but he pushed on, hoping to get his former Master back to bed soon.

“Next, 3 things you can hear.”

“Oh well, this is easy. I have very good hearing, you know? Because I am a vampire.” 

Guillermo nodded. Nandor was starting to sound more like himself again.

Nandor concentrated for a moment.

“I hear the tree knocking on the window outside because of the wind, Laszlo snoring, and…”

The loudest sound was right next to him.

Laying in his coffin, Nandor often found himself focusing on the rhythm of Guillermo’s heartbeat as he moved around the house during the day. The soft beating lulling him to sleep. He grew accustomed to it over the past 11 years Guillermo had been his familiar. 

Nandor realized this may have been a part of the reason he had been such an insomniac lately. Guillermo wasn’t a consistent presence in the house anymore, leaving the house too quiet for Nandor to relax. But now, he could hear his former familiar’s heart loud and clear. The thudding grew quicker as the rest of the room stayed silent. Nandor cleared his throat, eyes focusing.

“I also hear your heart beating.”

Guillermo didn’t respond immediately. He felt vulnerable in the moment. He thought he could hide his feelings, but his body couldn’t. His mind wandered to desires he once had, that he had worked so hard to suppress. He shook the feeling away. He was imagining things. Nandor had never and would never see him as more than a familiar, a servant. 

His therapist said the relationship was unhealthy, always having to make sacrifices never to get anything in return. He had pushed back in their last session, but when the therapist asked what Nandor had done for him, he didn’t know how to answer. 

He left the appointment, defeated, knowing there was nothing left for him in Staten Island, and he was only prolonging the inevitable by staying.

He heard Nandor tap his foot. He had gotten lost in his own thoughts again. He made a quick mental note to ask for tips to stop overthinking the next time he was in his therapist’s office.

“Sorry again. Yes, now, 2 things you can smell.”

The question made Nandor hesitate because he knew the answer. He was a vampire, of course, who had an incredible sense of smell, and he could smell all of Guillermo.

The dirt under his fingernails from burying the vampires’ latest meals, the jasmine-scented shampoo that reminded him of his own floral oils he treated his hair with, and even the silver on the crucifix Guillermo kept in his pocket.

And his blood, the blood that has tempted him for so many years. Yes, he had learned to live with that sweet smell always out of reach. But Nandor realized now that there was nothing stopping him now from revealing his true feelings. There was never anything stopping him, and he regretted seemingly all the years he had wasted. He grinned like an idiot.

Nandor made a show of leaning close and sniffing around Guillermo. 

“You smell wonderful, Guillermo.”

The man squeaked. Guillermo was caught off guard. The vampire was now eyeing him with what had to be either hunger or lust. He wasn’t sure at this point, and he wasn’t sure if he cared. He had dreamed of a moment when his former Master would look at him with desire like this.

“That’s only one thing though. You need to name another,” Guillermo said breaking the tension.

Nandor thought for a minute, still only inches from Guillermo’s face. He was impatient, and plotting his next move. The vampire slayer shifted next to him.

“I think I am very calm now, Guillermo, so we can really move on, so what is the last thing I need to name?”

Guillermo smirked. He raised an eyebrow, steeling himself for rejection, but secretly hoping he really wasn’t imagining things and could dare his former Master to do the one thing he never had the courage for.

“The last thing you name is one thing you taste.”

It didn’t take more than a second for Nandor to lunge at Guillermo with years of pent up passion, crushing his lips against the smaller man’s.

Guillermo tensed at the sudden development in their relationship, but quickly relaxed when he realized what was happening. His hands instantly roamed Nandor’s body as his former Master playfully bit at his lip, just shy of being hard enough to break skin.

Nandor pulled out of the kiss leaning his forehead against Guillermo’s. Their eyes met again, and Guillermo nodded, consenting to what they both knew would happen next.

Nandor moved his mouth to Guillermo’s neck, his beard grazing his cheek. Before he sunk his fangs in, for what would be the first but certainly not the last time, he whispered into Guillermo’s ear.

“I’m going to taste  _ you _ .”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Guillermo definitely needs a therapist, and my headcanon is that it has to be a like a witch or someone in the supernatural world. I think for anyone who goes to therapy, you learn new coping tools, and you get way too excited to try them out and help other people. I can imagine Guillermo coming back from a session every week trying to get the vampires to be a little more introspective but failing miserably.
> 
> Anyways, I'd love any feedback, and maybe I'll keep writing!
> 
> And you can follow me on tumblr->sophiatheunicorniologist.tumblr.com
> 
> .


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